Lumia 950 & 950 XL

Consumer value propositions and naming of two great phones.

Some of you may remember that Nokia had a lot of phones that were named with numbers. By 2014 Microsoft had already acquired us and we started to work on high-end phones that would come out late in 2015. I was probably the last Director that was hired to Nokia and my task was to bring in consumer centricity to these efforts.

My first step was to set up "4 party collaboration" between R&D leaders, portfolio guys, designers and us, the marketers. I dragged along stubborn but really smart Finnish engineers to the homes of leading-edge consumers in San Francisco. On the way back, one of them said, next time we need to go to China, too! Unfortunately there was not a next time, but the phones business was ramped down.

Anyway, we created the propositions that led to two very powerful devices, 950 and 950 XL. If I wouldn't have put up a fight, they could have been called 945 and 1545. So, I'm not only proud of the phones but also of christening them with names that make at least some sense.